Electric machines have been applied as motors and generators in a wide range of industries for more than a century. A reluctance machine is an electric machine in which torque is produced by the tendency of the movable part of the machine to move into a position where the inductance of an excited winding is maximized. A switched reluctance machine is a type of a reluctance machine where the windings are energized as a function of the position of the movable part of the machine.
Conventional switched reluctance machines typically utilize a stator with windings on the stator teeth to generate an electromagnetic field so that a rotor in the electromagnetic field has the tendency to align with the stator to achieve maximum inductance. The rotor rotates as long as the excitation of the windings on the stator teeth switches successfully.